29
by shippershape
Summary: Cameron has started a tally. Every time he catches Kirsten staring at him, he adds another mark on the notepad app on his phone. So far, his running tally is 27. He's only been keeping track for two days.
Cameron has started a tally. Every time he catches Kirsten staring at him, he adds another mark on the notepad app on his phone. So far, his running tally is 27.

He's only been keeping track for two days.

There are worse things, he figures, than having a beautiful blonde staring at you all the time. But given their situation, and the fact that it happens frequently enough that it's starting to freak him out, he decides that it's nearly all it's cracked up to be. She's not shy about it, never really pretends she wasn't staring when he catches her, but she never offers any explanations either, just diverts her focus back to whatever she was supposed to be looking at in the first place, leaving him to wonder what the hell is going on. The first few times it happened, he'd just assumed there was chutney on his face, or avocado, and eventually he'd become paranoid that he was starting to grow a hideous mole or something along those lines, dragging Camille off to a corner of the lab and forcing her to inspect his face for disfiguring growths.

Naturally, Camille told him to get a grip.

But now Kirsten's doing it again, and this is going to be number 28 in less than 48 hours, and he's honestly beginning to develop a complex.

He tries to focus on the task at hand, an incredibly boring policy document that their most recent victim, Donald Cracknell, had hiding away in his safe. It's the kind of thing he would have trouble forcing himself to read on a normal day, but with the added distraction of a pair of laserlike blue eyes burning a hole in the side of his head, it's proving impossible.

" _What_ ," he finally shouts, throwing the papers on the table and swiveling to face her, " _is going on?_ "

She blinks, startled by his outburst.

"How could I not have noticed how you felt about me?" She asks, cocking her head.

Now, he's staring at her. More like gaping, actually.

"What?"

"I mean I was with you a lot. More than anyone other than Camille," she muses, continuing to study him with an almost academic interest. "And you might think I'm Queen of the Estupidos, but I'm a smart girl. I notice things. I noticed that Linus has had six cups of coffee today, and that Camille didn't come home last night, which means they were either up all night having sex, or fighting."

Cameron makes a face.

"And I pay attention to you," she adds, a little more softly. "I might not ask, but when you tell me things, I remember. And not just because of the whole perfect recall thing."

Still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she knows (she _knows?_ ), Cameron recognizes that as one of the single nicest things she's ever said to him. Camille alludes vaguely, every once in a while, to the fact that Kirsten may have said nice things about him when he was dead, but he doesn't remember any of it. Depriving your brain of oxygen for four minutes will do that to you, it turns out. Even the moments after he woke up are gone, lost into a haze of fog and blur of colors. He knows she was there, but. He doesn't remember much else.

"I-you-you _know_?" He finally splutters. She rolls her eyes.

"Of course. I saw it all when I stitched into you. How you feel about me, how we met as kids, the way you see m-"

"Wait, what?" He stops her, frowning. "What do you mean we met as kids?"

"You don't know?" That seems to give her pause, lips parting thoughtfully. "I mean, I know you remember, but…" She shakes her head, focusing. "We met at the hospital. I was there visiting my mother, you were recovering from your heart surgery."

He squints, trying to figure out what she's talking about.

"You were wearing these little plaid pajamas and you told me…" She smiles. "You told me it was going to be okay. Promised me actually."

He does remember. The little blonde girl, sad but…different. He remembers holding her hand. He remembers how her face stayed with him for years. He apparently remembers it much better than he'd realized.

"That was you."

"Yeah. And you remembered."

"I guess so," he mumbles, a little dazed. This is a lot to process.

"You remembered everything, what I was wearing when we first met, my first stitch, the way I _tasted_ when I kissed you."

He almost cringes at that, it all sounds so…over the top when she says it like that. But it's true.

"The way you felt, the…intensity of your feelings, I don't understand how I could have missed it," she finally admits, sitting back in her chair with a huff. He slides off his glasses, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

"So you've been watching me," he repeats, thumbs still pressing hard enough into his eyelids that he can see stars, "to try and figure it out?'"

He opens his eyes to see her nodding. Taking a deep breath, he matches her posture, sinking back into his chair.

"Right. Well, here's the thing. At first, it was kind of embarrassing." He recalls the initial flutter of nerves he'd get whenever she'd walk in a room, and it was all so unprofessional, she was his _colleague_ , but it had only gotten worse from there. "I had a crush on the pretty new blonde girl. Very high school. And then, you know, you've always been pretty obvious with your intentions. I knew you didn't feel the same way. So there didn't seem to be any point in telling you about my feelings."

She thinks about this.

"So you hid them from me."

He shrugs.

"But I'm good at telling when people are lying to me," she argues.

"I mean, I'm a terrible liar. So clearly that's not true," he points out, earning an icy glare. When she doesn't say anything, obviously still stewing over it, he sighs. "Look, some people see what they want to see. Maybe you just ignored it because you didn't want it to be true." The thought sticks like a knife in his chest, but it's not like it hasn't occurred to him before. "But you know now, right? So lets just…move on."

Her mouth twists unhappily.

"You don't want to talk about it?"

Confused, he narrows his eyes. "I thought we just did."

"You're not going to ask me how I feel?" She wonders. Briefly, he considers hiding under the table. Or running from the room. Both are more appealing than asking Kirsten how she feels just so she can tell him what he already knows. But she doesn't ask for much. And she never wants to talk like this. So he just steels himself for it, and asks.

"How do you feel, Stretch?"

"I want to go out."

For what feels like the hundredth time in the past ten minutes, he just stares at her in confusion.

"Wh-now?"

"I mean," she clarifies, getting to her feet, "with you. I feel like I want to go out with you."

Her words sink in, slowly.

"Are you asking me on a date?" He's baffled, and a little suspicious as she walks over to where he sits, gazing down at him.

"Yeah."

He gets to his feet so quickly that he almost topples over the chair, blushing when it teeters behind him.

"Okay." He says, and she smiles knowingly at him, because of course he was going to say yes, but his heart feels like it might beat right out of his chest anyways. "Did you-you probably didn't actually mean right now. But we could, it's almost time for lunch, and there's an organic tapas truck on Sepulveda that I've been meaning to try-"

She kisses him. The words die on his tongue, all thoughts turning to her. She tastes like honey crullers, and he decides he's never been as happy as he is in that moment. His hands slide around her waist, pulling her flush against him, and he's considering the benefits of lifting her onto the table when someone clears their throat behind him.

They spring apart, Cameron turning a beaming scarlet, Kirsten just looking smug.

"I was going to ask if you'd made any headway with the policy report but," Maggie throws her hands in the air. "I'm not even going to bother." She spins around, heels tapping on the hard floor as she retreats. Cameron turns back to Kirsten.

"Okay, so-"

"Later," the blonde tells him, and he's suddenly deeply distracted by the movement of her lips. That's probably going to prove to be a problem, given that they work together.

"Right." He clears his throat. It's going to be a long couple of hours. "Later."

.-.-.-.-.

Later, they're laying in bed, and though his eyes are closed, he can still feel her gaze on him.

He yawns, rolling over to throw an arm across her waist.

"That's 29."


End file.
